Scientists for the first time in history have created synthetic human embryos

Using stem cells, scientists have created synthetic human embryos. This was reported by The Guardian.

Experts say these engineered embryos, which mimic real ones in their early stages of development, can provide clues about the impact of genetic disorders on development and what biological factor responsible for repeated miscarriages.

They also added that the structures created in the laboratory did not yet have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but included the cells that make up the placenta, the yolk sac and the embryo itself.

“We now have the ability to create human embryo-like models by reprogramming embryonic stem cells,” said Magdalena Zernitskaya-Goetz, a professor at the University of Cambridge and Caltech.

In the short term, synthetic embryos will not be used in the clinic. It would be illegal to implant them in a mother’s womb, and it is not yet known whether these structures have the potential to mature beyond the early stages of development.

This time, the embryos were cultured at a stage that slightly exceeded the 14-day developmental stage of a real embryo, according to Zernitskaya-Goetz.

Some model structures that grow from an embryonic cell reach a point of development called gastrulation. At this point, the embryo changes from a continuous layer of cells to individual cell lines. At this stage of development, the embryo does not yet have a functioning heart, intestine, or rudimentary brain, but the model has primordial germ cells.

It was previously reported that researchers from the University of Cambridge managed to grow an embryo without eggs and sperm.